Preemptible VMs

ELI5 — The Vibe Check

Preemptible VMs are Google Cloud's version of spot instances. They last a maximum of 24 hours and can be taken away at any time (though Google now has 'Spot VMs' too, which are more flexible). Same idea: super cheap, might disappear. Use them for work you can restart if interrupted.

Real Talk

Preemptible VMs are GCP compute instances available at 60-91% discount that can be preempted (shut down) at any time with 30 seconds' notice and always terminate after 24 hours. Google has since introduced Spot VMs as a more flexible successor without the 24-hour limit. Both are ideal for fault-tolerant batch workloads.

When You'll Hear This

"We run our data pipeline on preemptible VMs and save a fortune." / "Preemptible VMs have a 24-hour max — use GCP Spot VMs for longer-running jobs."